self-governing colonies should, without sacrificing their autonomy, and on equal terms one with another, be brought into full copartnership with the mother country; in other words, some plan of "imperial federation." There were several forms which such a federation could take. It might, in the first place, be essentially commercial. That is, the United Kingdom and the self-governing dominions might reciprocally give trade advantages which were denied to the rest of the world. In pursuance of this idea, Canada in 1897 allowed imports from the mother country the advantage of a remission of one eighth of her normal duties, and in three years raised the preference to one third. South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand took similar action. To the present time, however, the arrangement is one-sided; for the Unionist proposal of " tariff reform " in the mother country has been unavailing, and, having no protective duties to lower or remit, the English government cannot meet the colonial governments halfway.

A second possible basis is that of armed defense. It has been pointed out that although the navy is the bulwark of the dominions no less than of the United Kingdom, no one of them, nor yet India, is required to make any contribution to its maintenance. For a decade prior to the outbreak of war in 1914 the English people were staggering under a steadily mounting burden of naval expenditure. The dominions were not unmindful of the situation, and most of them began making small voluntary grants of aid. New Zealand contributed a battle-cruiser; South Africa voted a small annual money payment; Australia started the building of a modest separate fleet unit; Canada discussed the subject but could not settle upon a plan. By voluntary action, furthermore, three of the dominions furnished land forces for use in the Boer war; and all put forth unstinted effort in aid of the motherland and her allies in the Great War of 1914-18. But, after full acknowledgement of this voluntary assistance has been made, the question remains whether it would not be possible, and desirable, to establish a general Imperial scheme of armed defense based on systematic rather than chance coöperation, and organized under unified military control.

Any substantial sort of federation must, however, involve more than trade preference and coöperative defense. There must be a certain amount of common political action, and, for this, some political machinery. The dominions have not been slow to let it be known that it does not comport with their power and pride to deal with their " copartner at London simply

through the Colonial Office, as a crown colony or other inferior dependency is expected to do; and long ago they asked that affairs of a general imperial interest should be discussed, not in the British cabinet alone, but also in a body in which all the great oversea sections of the Empire were represented. Prior to 1914 no positive steps were taken to meet this demand except the organization of the Imperial Conference. The first Conference was held in 1887, on the occasion of the Queen's jubilee. Others were convoked in 1897, 1902, and 1907; and on the last occasion a permanent organization was adopted, with a view to regular meetings every four years. It was noteworthy that the mother country was represented at the sessions, not by the Colonial Secretary, but by the prime minister, an arrangement which tended to put the dominions who were also represented by their premiers on a common footing with her. The Conference had no legal status, but as a deliberative and advisory body it rendered valuable service.

It was inevitable that coöperation in the Great War should bring striking changes in the interrelations of the various parts of the Empire. Chief among these was the rise of an Imperial Cabinet. One of the first acts of the War Cabinet organized late in 19161 was to convoke a special Imperial Conference in which the self-governing dominions, and also India, were represented. During intervals between the Conference's sessions, in 1917, there were several meetings of a body whose like the nation had never seen before. Into the new and small War Cabinet were brought the premiers and other representatives of the dominions, and also two native spokesmen of India — and not as mere witnesses and informal advisers, but as ministers without portfolio, deliberating and voting under the privy councilor's oath. Furthermore, before the delegates sailed for their homes the British premier, Lloyd George, announced that it was proposed to hold such meetings annually, to be attended by the British premier and such of his colleagues as deal especially with Imperial affairs, by the premiers or other accredited spokesmen of the self-governing dominions, and by a representative of India to be appointed by the Indian government. An Imperial Parliament which should bring together legislative delegates from the whole Empire has frequently been proposed, but as often abandoned as impracticable. Under war-time emergency, however, an Imperial Cabinet became, at least for the time being, a reality. A resolution passed by the Conference of 1917 looked toward a 1 See p. 106.

general readjustment of the constitutional relations of the British government at a special Conference to be called after the war; and it contained the interesting declaration that "any such readjustment, while thoroughly preserving all existing powers of self-government and complete control of domestic affairs, should be based upon a full recognition of the dominions as autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth, and of India as an important portion of the same, should recognize their right to an adequate voice in foreign policy and in foreign relations, and should provide effective arrangements for continuous consultation in all important matters of common Imperial concern, and for such necessary concerted action founded on consultation as the several governments determine." The experiment of 1917 was repeated in 1918.1

1 For a brief discussion of imperial federation see Lowell, Government of England, II, Chap. lviii. One of the earliest extensive discussions is C. Dilke, Problems of Greater Britain (London, 1890). More recent books on the subject are R. Jebb, Studies in Colonial Nationalism (London, 1905); ibid., The Imperial Conference, 2 vols. (London, 1911); ibid., The Britannic Question; a Survey of Alternatives (London, 1913); J. G. Findlay, The Imperial Conference of 1911 from Within (London, 1912); J. W. Root, Colonial Tariffs (London, 1906); C. J. Fuchs, Trade Policy of Great Britain and her Colonies since 1860, trans. by C. Archibald (London, 1905); E. J. Payne, Colonies and Colonial Federation (London, 1905); Lord Milner, The Nation and the Empire (Boston, 1913); L. Curtis, The Problem of the Commonwealth (London, 1916); A. P. Newton, The Empire and the Future (London, 1916); and W. B. Worsfold, The Empire on the Anvil (London, 1916). An interesting expression of opinion by the Earl of Cromer is presented in W. H. Dawson [ed.], AfterWar Problems (New York, 1917), 17-38. On the Imperial Cabinet see J. A. Fairlie, British War Administration (New York, 1919), Chap. iii, and G. M. Wrong, "The Imperial War Cabinet," in Canadian Hist. Rev., Mar., 1920. Interesting suggestions are made in A. P. Poley, "The Privy Council and Problems of Closer Union of the Empire," in. Jour. Soc. Comp. Legis., Jan., 1917, and A. B. Keith, "The Idea of an Imperial Constitution," in Canad. Law Times, Nov., 1916. Useful surveys of the subject are T. H. Boggs, "The British Empire and Closer Union," in Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev., Nov., 1916, and R. L. Schuyler, "Reconstruction of the British Empire," in Polit. Sci. Quar., Sept., 1916.

cally remarked that there are only two events in history — the siege of Troy and the French Revolution. The statement is absurd enough; and yet it contains this undoubted truth, that the political and social transformation of France at the close of the eighteenth century can be kept off no list, regardless of how brief it is, of great historic occurrences. It divided the career of France into two vast, unequal chapters; it released impulses which turned the governments and peoples of all western continental Europe into new paths; despite the apprehensions and admonitions of Burke, it perceptibly affected the political development of England; the waves of its influence. have reached the most distant parts of the earth and have not yet spent their strength. Modern government in continental Europe is largely the product, not of the Revolution in any narrow or immediate sense, it is true, yet of the complex of liberalizing forces to which the Revolution first gave full and concrete expression.

In turning to a study of the political systems of the principal continental states it is therefore logical to begin with France; and in undertaking an analysis of the governmental institutions and usages of the France that we know to-day, it is necessary to take a backward glance at the nature and extent of the political change which the Revolution wrought, and at the principal stages through which the political experience of the nation passed before the stability and maturity of the Third Republic were reached. An additional reason for taking up France next

in order after England is that the institution or form that dominates the governmental organization of both states is the same, namely, the cabinet system. The two governments are sufficiently alike to make comparisons and contrasts both interesting and instructive.

The political system which the Revolution overturned was the product of eight hundred years of growth. On account of her less isolated position, France was played upon by more unsettling forces in medieval and modern times than was England. But it would be easy to exaggerate the difference between the two! states so far as the mere matter of political and institutional continuity is concerned; the changeableness of governmental forms which seemed a main French characteristic between 1789 and 1875 found no counterpart in the history of the country in earlier centuries. The principal features of this historic political system can be stated briefly. First, the government was an absolute monarchy. It is true that certain fundamental laws of the realm, established for the most part by custom, had become real constitutional principles, and as such were considered binding upon the king himself. One of these regulated the succession to the throne; another forbade alienation of the royal domain. But there was a good deal of doubt as to what rules belonged in this category, and the freedom of the sovereign suffered no great limitation. Gathering strength in the hands of strongwilled monarchs such as Philip Augustus, Louis IX, and Philip the Fair, the royal authority reached its apogee in le grand monarque, Louis XIV, in the second half of the seventeenth century - a king who subordinated everything to dynastic interests, who surpassed all contemporary despots in his sense of unbounded and irresponsible dominion, and who showered every favor upon the bishop-courtier Bossuet for writing a book which made him the chief exponent of the theory of absolute monarchy by divine right.1 We hold our crown from God alone," reads an edict of Louis XV in 1770; " the right to make laws, by which our subjects must be conducted and governed, belongs to us alone, independently and unshared."

Second, the country's affairs were administered by a vast, centralized, bureaucratic body of officials - notably the intendants of the généralités and their agents, the sub-délégués

1 La politique tirée des propres paroles de l'Écriture sainte, or “Politics as derived from the very Words of the Holy Scriptures," published soon after the author was appointed tutor to the dauphin in 1670. See Dunning, Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu, 325–330.